My Trip to Green Bay: Experiencing America’s Most Primal Football Fan-Base and How it Made Me a Bigger Lions Fan

Stadium Strangers

It was 2008. We decided to take a family vacation to New York at the end of July. By we, I mean: my mother and my father wanted to take a trip to New York and my brother—Chicago’s newest citizen and most eligible bachelor—and I—readying my venture of four years in East Lansing—agreed to go on one more family trip before I officially became a co-ed. Part of the lure, though, was the opportunity to see one of America’s most treasured landmarks: Yankee Stadium; which was especially important, since Yankee Stadium was about to see its final turnstiles turned that fall. The Davidoffs have, are, and will always be a baseball family at heart (much like Detroit is a baseball city at heart). There’s been … Read More…

Opening Day: A Benchmark or 1/162 of a Season?

OpeningDay

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…”

–T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

I always liked that mileage marker that Eliot used.  For many of us in education, we measure our lives in years teaching–or perhaps by an unforgettable group of students (good or bad!).  My sister Katie, a managing editor of weekly magazines for over 20 years observed that teachers at least had closure, that there is time to take a step back and assess what’s been done.  When Katie was finishing one magazine for print, the following two weeks’ magazines were well under-way.

And for … Read More…

Hi-Tech Meets Low-IQ: The Lions’ Titus Young, Sr.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130125/SPORTS01/130125018/detroit-lions-titus-young-twitter?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Sports

‘If y’all going to cut me let me go’ (Detroit Free Press, 1/25/13)

titus

We’ve all wanted to have the last word.  We’ve all bit our tongues, taken deep breaths and counted to ten.  It’s one of the more taxing aspects of parenting–training your kid to self-edit.  During one of my less-patient moments, I believe I said:  

“No one really cares what you have to say at this moment.”

The Detrot Lions have a knack for looking over that giant draft board in April and landing the perfect candidate year after year.  With every Calvin Johnson along comes his polar … Read More…